Moon Rising (13 page)

Sora glanced at Moon, ducked her head, and mumbled something like, “Figuring out my clawmate.” She took the scroll and scurried over to her spot by the windows.

“How are you, Moon?” Starflight asked. “How was class this morning?”

Terrifying.
“All right — interesting,” she said. “Do you have any scrolls about dreamvisitors?”

He tipped his head, frowning a little. “I’m sure we do. Why? You didn’t — I mean, you haven’t been visited by someone, have you?”

“I’m just curious,” Moon said quickly. “Someone mentioned them, um, in class, and I don’t know anything about them.”

Starflight slid out from behind the desk and started walking along the shelves, touching the carvings here and there. “If you ever do see a strange dragon in your dreams, let me know, all right? Especially if she’s a SkyWing.” A viciously scary orange dragon wreathed in smoke flashed through his mind.

“A SkyWing?” Moon said alertly. “Why?”

Starflight sighed. “Queen Scarlet —
ex
-Queen Scarlet is out there with a dreamvisitor, and she hates us. I worry sometimes that she’ll start scaring our students in their dreams.”
And that’s far from the worst she could do,
he thought anxiously.

“How did she get her dreamvisitor?” Moon asked.

“We’re not entirely sure,” Starflight said. He tilted his wings back and scratched his head. “She must have found it while she was imprisoned in Burn’s weirdling tower, and Burn must not have known it was there. My theory is that Scarlet found it in or on this NightWing dragon corpse she disemboweled, somehow.”

“Oh,” Moon said. “Does anyone know where the other two dreamvisitors are?”

To her surprise, Starflight nodded. “We know one for sure — it’s right here in the school. I think Sunny has it this week. She got it from a scavenger, who stole it from the SandWings. And we’re pretty sure the other dreamvisitor was lost in the volcano. I found it in the NightWing treasury, but someone stole it from me shortly before the island exploded.”

“You don’t know who?”

He shook his head, flickers of guilt ricocheting through his mind. “Here.” He brushed his talons across a section of the wall, and then chose a scroll and held it out for her. “This should be
The Animus Histories.
It’s about several animus-touched objects, but the dreamvisitors definitely have a section in there.”

“Thanks,” Moon said. Could she have heard Queen Scarlet in someone’s dream last night? Another awful thought followed that one. She hesitated — but she had to ask. “Could a dragon ever use a dreamvisitor to talk to someone while they’re awake? I mean, like in their heads?”

Now Starflight looked really puzzled. “No, that wouldn’t make sense,” he said. “The way they’re enchanted is to get into dreams, nothing else. Why do you ask?”

“Just a story I heard once,” Moon said.

I promise you, little Moon, I am no SkyWing.

Then who ARE you?
Moon thought back fiercely.

No answer, of course. She took the scroll over to a ledge by the biggest window and curled up with her back against a tapestry-covered wall.

There were more animus-touched objects than she would have expected, considering there hadn’t been that many animus dragons in Pyrrhia’s history — at least, as far as anyone knew. She stopped on a spread with a beautiful drawing of a tall, sweeping pavilion, twelve stories high, made of white stone and looking as if it had grown straight out of the water into this perfect shape.

The SeaWing Summer Palace
, read the caption.
Made of stone enchanted by
Albatross
,
a SeaWing prince, to grow into a tower he designed.

That’s really pretty,
Moon thought, brushing one claw lightly across the drawing.
I wish I could create something like that.
She rolled the scroll to read the longer paragraph on the side.

Albatross
was one of the first known animus dragons, hatched over two thousand years ago, before anyone truly understood the limits of this power. He used his animus magic to create many things, including the beautiful Summer Palace pavilion, whose location is known only to SeaWings. But at the time nobody realized the terrible price of using animus powers, and nobody saw that Albatross was slowly going insane.

Not until the Royal SeaWing Massacre.

It was a devastating shock to the entire Kingdom of the Sea when Albatross, who had been hailed as one of the greatest SeaWings of all time, suddenly snapped and tried to murder his entire family. He managed to kill nine dragons, including his sister the queen, his own daughter, and her husband, before someone was able to stop him with a spear to his chest. Among the few who survived were his young grandson, Fathom, and granddaughter, Pearl. Pearl ascended the throne peacefully and ruled for many years. One of her first edicts was to outlaw the use of animus magic anywhere in her kingdom.

Her brother, Fathom, was an animus dragon himself, but after the massacre he refused to ever use his power — except perhaps once. [See:
Fathom
]

Moon shivered. What an awful story.
I guess there are worse powers than mine in the world.
At least mind reading only made her socially anxious and gave her headaches. She was pretty sure it wasn’t turning her homicidal, though.

She found the section on dreamvisitors and studied the drawing of three star-shaped sapphires.
Dreamvisitors
, read the caption.
Enchanted by a NightWing named
Darkstalker
to allow whichever dragon holds one to walk in any other dragon’s dreams.

Moon hadn’t realized they were made by a NightWing. She unrolled it to the longer description.

The first known animus dragon in the NightWing tribe,
Darkstalker
,
also had the powers of mind reading and prophecy, making him a truly formidable dragon. He created three dreamvisitors so there would be one for him, one for his best friend [see:
Fathom
], and one for his beloved, a dragon named Clearsight. They were intended to link the three, no matter how far apart they were.

That’s sweet,
Moon thought. If it were her, who would she give dreamvisitors to?
Mother, of course.
She felt a twinge of sadness and also guilt, that she’d managed not to miss her mother every second she’d been gone.
Who else? Kinkajou?
The idea of Kinkajou flinging rainbows around in Moon’s dreams as well as in her waking thoughts was a little alarming.

The answer is no one, really,
Moon admitted to herself. She didn’t want anyone to see inside her subconscious. If they did, she was sure they’d never trust her again.

Ultimately Darkstalker grew to be too powerful and his ambitions began to terrify the dragons around him. He claimed he’d found a way to make himself immortal. Rumor had it he planned to overthrow the NightWing queen and seize the throne for himself. After he killed his own father with an aspect of animus power that no one had ever seen before, the tribe agreed: He was too dangerous to be free.

The details of the trap set for Darkstalker are lost to history, but it is certain that he and Clearsight disappeared one night and were probably both killed at the same time. It is also believed that he was ultimately taken down with an animus-touched object created by Fathom — the only time Fathom ever used his power.

Fear of the Darkstalker lingered in the NightWing tribe, however, causing them to move to a new, secret home in case he ever returned. NightWing ghost stories still speak of him, and there are those who believe that one day Darkstalker may yet rise again and come seeking his revenge….

NightWing ghosts,
Moon thought, touching the scroll lightly.
Mother never told me any traditional NightWing ghost stories. She had much more effective ways of terrifying me, just by telling me about the volcano and the RainWings and what would happen if another NightWing ever found me in the rainforest.

She rolled the scroll in either direction, but there was no more information about the dreamvisitors.

Read the section on Fathom,
the mystery voice suddenly commanded in her head.

On Fathom?
Moon thought, glancing up. Sora shifted slightly, but kept her eyes on the scroll in front of her, drowning her worries under a deluge of words about IceWings.
Why? To find out what he did with his dreamvisitor?

Just read it,
the voice said, and there was an odd vibration to it that she hadn’t heard before, like an egg shuddering before it cracked.

What do you know about Fathom that I don’t?
Moon wondered as she rolled through the scroll. She quickly found the section on Fathom, alongside a giant illustrated question mark.

Grandson of Albatross, the perpetrator of the Royal SeaWing Massacre [see:
Albatross
].
Fathom
was so traumatized by his family’s murder that he swore an oath to his sister, Pearl, the new SeaWing queen, that he would never use his animus magic.

Fathom was sent to the Night Kingdom to befriend and guide a young animus dragon named Darkstalker. The hope was that Fathom’s sad story, his caution, and his understandable wariness about their powers would have a positive effect on the ambitious, brilliant NightWing. At first it seemed to work, and they became close friends.

But Darkstalker could not be convinced that his powers were dangerous, and as he used them more and more, Fathom and the other NightWings became afraid of him. Fathom was among the first to sound a warning about his friend, and the stories say he was the one who convinced Clearsight that Darkstalker could not be trusted.

The legend says that Fathom finally agreed to use his power just once: to enchant an object that could stop Darkstalker, since nothing and nobody else could. Whatever the object was, it must have worked, as Darkstalker disappeared and was never seen again.

How sad,
Moon thought, studying the picture of a worried-looking SeaWing.
He must have felt awful, doing that to his friend. I wonder what he enchanted.

There was a deep pause, and Moon could almost have sworn that she felt the mountain tremble slightly under her talons.

It was a bracelet,
the voice whispered, soft as leaves falling.

Moon blinked at the scroll.
What?

A bracelet. A wrist cuff. Enchanted to put me to sleep forever. Since I couldn’t die — that story about making myself immortal is true — they had to come up with something else.

Her whole body felt numb, like ice was sweeping across her scales.

I knew it,
the voice went on.
I knew when she pulled it out — right before she put it on me, I thought,
Fathom must have touched that.
He broke his sacred oath to his sister, just to betray me. But I wasn’t sure until now.

What are you saying?
Moon asked, pressing her claws into the stone below her.

I’m saying, nice to meet you, Moon. My name is Darkstalker.

“But you
can’t
be,” Moon whispered, then realized she’d spoken aloud when Sora looked up and blinked at her. She turned toward the wall and thought,
Darkstalker lived over two thousand years ago.

I know.
He sighed.
I’ve been asleep a long time, apparently. I suspect this bracelet was supposed to keep me that way forever.

So what happened?
Moon asked.
Why are you awake now?

It’s broken,
he said.
After two thousand years, almost anything becomes weaker. Something must have jarred it and snapped it off.

The earthquakes?
Moon wondered.
There was a comet six months ago — as it passed by, there were a lot of earthquakes and strange weather.

That’s when I woke up,
he said,
so you’re probably right.

Moon hesitated. Six months ago was also when her nightmares had started. The ones about Jade Mountain falling. Was she seeing visions of something that would ultimately be caused by Darkstalker’s awakening?

I’m not actually a monster, no matter what the scrolls and ghost stories say,
he said.
Can’t you tell?

Where are you?
she asked instead of answering.

That, I don’t know. Somewhere dark. Covered in stone. I can’t move. I can only … think.
He let out an odd sort of chuckle.
Perhaps you can see why I was so pleased to find you. I can hear others, but no one else can hear me. Makes for a lot of very boring, one-sided conversations.

She didn’t know what else to say. She’d expected … well, another dragon like her, someone she could meet and go flying with. She had not expected to be talking to the legendary monster of NightWing nightmares.

I’m not a monster,
he said again quietly.
It seems history has painted me that way, but perhaps that’s what happens when you disappear before you can tell your own story, and only your enemies are left to finish it. Or your best-friends-turned-enemies, apparently.

Moon rolled back to the Darkstalker section of the scroll. A handsome dark face stared regally out at her. He had the silver scales in the corners of his eyes, too.

Formidable dragon,
Darkstalker said with mild amusement.
I suppose that’s true, but it is not my fault I was born with these powers. I think you know something about that.

I’ve never plotted to steal any thrones, though,
Moon pointed out.
Or killed my father.

I think you would, if you’d had my father. I saved the tribe from him,
Darkstalker argued.
He was a lot worse than I am. This scroll’s version of the story is highly oversimplified. As for being king — why not? Just because we’ve only ever had queens, does that mean a king is impossible? Why would I have all these gifts if I wasn’t supposed to use them to lead and protect the tribe?

It felt as though he’d suddenly seized her mind in an iron grip. Moon winced, touching her head.

Listen,
Darkstalker said.
I could see the future, but not just any future —
all
the possible futures. Do you understand what that means? I could have guided the tribe along the best path, to safety and glory and power and everything else. At each crossroad, I would have known the right thing to do. I loved my tribe, Moonwatcher. I would have been the best ruler they’d ever had. I know it; I
saw
the futures where I was king, benevolent and beloved, married to Clearsight with six little dragonets of our own. Those were possible. They could have happened, if anyone had had faith in me.

He paused, then went on.
She saw them, too. Clearsight had the gift of prophecy, as strong as mine. She knew those futures existed … but she also saw the ones where I turned toward evil, destroying instead of protecting. She didn’t believe me that I could avoid those paths.

In the end, I guess she didn’t believe in me at all.

I wonder what happened to her.

There was another really long pause.

This is going to sound weird,
Moon offered,
but I kind of want to give you a hug right now.

Darkstalker barked a laugh.

How did she surprise you, then?
Moon asked.
If you could see all these futures — how did she trick you with the bracelet?

I had too much faith in
her
,
he said.
I saw the possibility that she would betray me in more than one future — but further down the line. I didn’t want to believe it, so I never studied those paths, just as she was supposed to stop looking down my darker paths as well. Up until the last moment, even with visions of blackness pressing against me, I still thought I could change her mind — that I could talk her into trusting me so we could fly into our bright, perfect future.

He made a kind of growl, but Moon couldn’t tell what was behind it — bitterness, revenge, despair? Loneliness?

I never saw any of this back then, though,
he said.
I suppose prophecy doesn’t extend two thousand years forward, not even for me.

So you don’t know what happens next?
Moon said.

All I can see is darkness,
he said softly.
All I can do is hope.

Hope for what?

Hope for someone to set me free. You, specifically.

Moon jumped up, dropping the
Animus Histories
scroll. Starflight turned his head toward her, and Sora blinked up in surprise.

“Sorry,” Moon said. “Just — had a thought.”
How can
I
set you free?
she cried.
I’m nobody. We have no idea where you are. And you’re — you’re —

The most dangerous dragon in Pyrrhia history?
Darkstalker said drily.
You shouldn’t believe everything you read, Moon.

Even if I did agree to do it,
Moon thought,
which I’m not saying I will … how could I?

There’s something I need,
he said.

“Moon!” Kinkajou called, sticking her head into the library. “Didn’t you hear the three gongs? We have to get to history class! Sora, you too!”

Sora scrambled to her feet, dropped her scroll with a clatter, and fumbled around trying to roll it back up. Moon picked up the
Animus Histories
, wondering if she could skip class somehow. She kind of wanted to keep talking to Darkstalker, which would be hard to do in a cave full of dragons all thinking at the top of their brains.

“Hi, Starflight! I’m superexcited,” Kinkajou said. “I don’t know
anything
about history. I have a
million
questions for Webs. Like, what’s the Scorching, and is it true there used to be scavengers everywhere, and who started the Talons of Peace, and what’s the big IceWing tragedy from the past, and —”

A scream of terror suddenly echoed through the tunnels.

“Help!” somebody shrieked. More screams and the clamor of running dragons joined the tumult. “The SkyWing! She’s here to kill us all!”